government should have three branches, in effect three governments within a government because it was difficult to get stuff done. [laughter] he was right. that is for sure. [laughter] "the new york times" called the new leaders of china and meritocracy of mediocrity. -- a meritocracy of mediocrity. >> there is talk about the last 10 years being the lost decade, where nothing much happened. if you turn that around a little bit -- i admit, there are a lot of problems and many things were and salt. -- unsolved. it was a pretty amazing tenures nonetheless. there were instabilities -- ten yeayears nonetheless. there were instabilities. when you look at the actual record, it is not bad. they more than got through. it is undeniably true -- it is hard to understand china in any terms, but if you cannot maintain the two opposite things happening at once, it is really difficult to understand what is going on. >> where is that tension right now, as to talk about this new era -- you talk about this new era? >> for a long time, people have thought the political reform had to accompany economic re